Award-winning environmental protection at RTL II

The German broadcaster RTL II has won the ‘Ökoprofit’ label for outstanding commitment to environmental protection and sustainability.

RTL II’s staff has a special dedication to sustainability and environmental protection. Now, the team at the Munich channel has been honoured for its commitment to ‘Ökoprofit’ – a project aimed at protecting the environment and climate while also reducing costs. ‘Ökoprofit’ stands for ‘Ecological Project for Integrated Environmental Technology’ and is a joint effort between the city of Munich, Munich-based companies, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and Munich public utilities.

‘Ökoprofit’ involved employees collecting ideas about how RTL II can consume less energy and resources and reduce the amount of waste. The best proposals were then reviewed and implemented under the direction of Stefan Uhl, Head of Technology at RTL II. The new energy-saving measures include converting the corridor lighting to LED technology, modifying the hall lighting, and replacing paper towels with cloth towel dispensers. These steps alone result in annual savings of 23,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. To give you an idea of what this means, just one kilowatt-hour of electricity is enough power to operate a laptop for 50 hours or a PC for ten hours.

And if that wasn’t enough, since 1 January 2013 the Munich channel is also using 100-percent emission-free and renewably produced electricity from certified hydroelectric power plants. Other measures to improve the environmental footprint are already being planned. For instance, RTL II is currently testing whether it is possible to use outside air to cool the technology units, thereby cutting down on the use of air conditioning.